Plot

Intercepted

Zula and Amanda.

Three years after the events of Alien: Isolation, Amanda Ripley is approached and picked up from a hike in the countryside from old friend and ex-marine Zula Hendricks. It is revealed that Amanda had spent three days floating in orbit before being rescued, and that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation have continuously silenced her efforts to expose them. Zula brings Amanda back to her apartment in the suburbs and introduces her to Davis One, who's artificial conscience has been installed into a terminal. Zula reveals to Amanda that despite both of their best efforts, the company has managed to acquire Xenomorph specimens and intends to use them in a bio-weapons program. The two join forces in an attempt to stop the company.

Amanda is threatened by Security Drones.

Amanda infiltrates a Weyland-Yutani tower, posing as an Engineer to retrieve data and find the location of the company's testing facility — a black site at an unspecified location. However, several advanced model Franklin drones express suspicion towards Amanda, with one of them noticing an earpiece in Amanda that she was using to communicate with Davis. Just before she is found out, Zula from her ship the Celestial, launches a missile that strikes the tower, with Amanda able to use the confusion to escape the tower and jump into the hull of the ship, but not before she is grazed from the bullet shot by an injured Drone, the bullet infused with Xenomorph blood.

Zula's ship uses the recently launched colonist ship the Gaspar as cover to escape from the company's radar and are on a set course to the black site. Zula and Amanda both get into Hypersleep chambers as Davis notes Weyland-Yutani's sudden surge of upgraded technology. Meanwhile at the exterior of the Gaspar, three Xenomorphs bury themselves into the depths of the ship.

9 days later, the ship arrives at its destination. Zula awakens Amanda, having suffered from a nightmare. However, Zula expresses concern, as the Gaspar is also nearby, seemingly being diverted from its course to the black site. Davis scans the ship and cites no available life-forms, also noting that "the passenger manifest has been erased and the ship reclassified as a re-supply only".

Extraction

The colonists of the Gaspar.

With the Gaspar at a nearby facility, the colonists are seen in orange jumpsuits and hoods over their heads held at gunpoint by drones. After being ordered to take the hoods off, the colonists are forced to breathe in a certain gas that is released into the compound.

Zula saves Amanda from a Drone.

Amanda, Hendricks and Davis board the now abandoned Gaspar orbiting the black sited planet, and are subsequently forced to put on pressure suits when moving on into the facility. Exploring the depths of the ship results in an encounter with a Drone carrying a crate. As it flees and attempts to sound the alarm, Amanda tackles the Drone to the floor, but the Drone quickly mounts her and begins pummeling at her helmet, causing a crack. Zula guns down the Drone and saves Amanda. The two soon realize that the colonists of the Gaspar are being sent back aboard the ship, with the ship being sent into a lower orbit by a nearby planet. Davis uncovers that the black site is rigged with the nuclear failsafe, and the group intend to hijack it from the outside of the site. As Amanda attempts to rewire the systems of the bomb with Davis' chip inside, they are caught by synthetics and a firefight ensues. Zula is shot in the arm and is sent into space, with Amanda following her. Zula realizes that Davis is still left inside the systems of the bomb and calls out to him, to no response.

Abandoned

Amanda, Zula and the Gaspar are sent plummeting into the planet's orbit, with Amanda managing to activate one of the suit's emergency landing hex capsules that engulfs the two. This, alongside the planet's dense troposphere allowed Zula and Amanda to survive the fall in relatively good shape. After crash landing on the planet, Amanda and Zula explore the now abandoned ship. The two figure that instead of boarding themselves inside the ship, the eleven-hundred colonists on board were forced out.

After saving a young fleeing colonist in an open field from two Xenomorphs, Amanda and Zula spot two Franklins. Zula confronts one and shoots at one, though it is despondent and ignores her. During nightfall, it is revealed that Davis managed to contact the two using a micro-transmitter hairclip on Zula. Davis reveals that the black site is a testing ground for generations of bred Xenomorphs, with the colonists being tagged for data research, as well as serving as a lure. He opts for the two to retrieve a tag and return to the Celestial, as the tag would be evidence enough to expose the company for their crimes. From there, Davis will detonate the nuke, destroying himself and the facility and wiping out all traces of the weapons program, much to Zula's dismay.

Detonation

While Zula and Amanda explore the jungle depths of the planet, after detecting a nearby heartbeat they are suddenly ambushed by the same young colonist they saved earlier named Alec Brand. He is initially hostile, but eventually allies himself with the two after guaranteeing him a way off the planet. Brand reveals that he has been tagged, Amanda cites that they can use the tag and Alec as testimony to put down the company for good. Davis contacts the group and states that he is transmitting his data to the Celestial and will land the ship at an extraction point.

Zula and Amanda brace.

The group are seen running in a large open field being chased by a horde of Aliens. Whilst Amanda and Zula hold off the horde, Brand climbs into the recently landed Celestial and straps himself into the nearest acceleration chair. With the Franklins closing in on Davis' position and attempting to remove him from the nuclear device, he announces to the group that he will be forced to detonate. As the Celestial takes off into the planet's atmosphere, stranding Amanda and Zula, Davis detonates the nuke, destroying the facility. As the blast sweeps the atmosphere and kills all of the Xenomorphs, Amanda activates Zula's hex capsule and the two embrace for impact.

Publisher's summary

#1: Following the events of Alien: Isolation, Amanda Ripley is kept silent by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation about the Xenomorph threat. Enter Zula Hendricks, an Ex-Colonial Marine, in need of Ripley's help to expose a sinister bio-weapons program. The duo teams up against an upgraded arsenal designed to keep the darkest atrocities secret!

#2: Amanda Ripley and Zula Hendricks make their way to the Weyland-Yutani black site, with the intent to disrupt a xenomorph-based weapons test. Only once they've arrived do they realize what is truly at stake, and that they must do whatever it takes to ensure this new technology is never deployed.

#3: As Amanda Ripley and Zula Hendricks deal with failing pressure suits and an orbital tumble, a Weyland-Yutani experiment unfolds on the surface of the moon below. A thousand kidnapped colonists' lives hang in the balance.

#4: Amanda Ripley and Zula Hendricks are engaged in a desperate battle on the jungle moon, losing the fight against genetically modified Aliens and synthetics for survival. One desperate, last-ditch, option remains, and the two women are forced to decide how much of a sacrifice they are willing to make.